Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/260

* NAIL. 222 NAILS. nails is given in the article Horn. According to the observation of Beau, the finger-nails grow at the rate of about two-fifths of a line in a week, while the toe-nails only grow with about one-fourth of that rapidity. The general state of liealth influences the growth of nails, and after illness a deficient formation of horny matter may result, shown by the production of a groove across the nail. The breadth and position of this groove indicate roughly the period and duration of the illness. An infiammation of the matrix of the nail is called onychia, and an acute inflammation of the tissues about the nail is termed paronychia or irhilloic. When a nail has been removed by violence, or has been thrown ofT in consequence of the formation of matter (pus) beneath it, a new nail is speedily formed, provided the matrix has not been seriously in- jured. There is a very common and troublesome affec- tion popularly known as ingroicing nail. Its most usual seat is the great toe. It does not in reality arise from any alteration of the nail, but from the adjacent soft parts being constantly pressed by the use of tight .shoes against its edge. These parts become swollen and inflamed ; suppuration ensues, and an intensely sensitive ulcer is formed, in which the nail is imbedded. In obstinate cases, it is not infrequenth' necessary to re- move a portion of the nail, an operation which may be done under local anaesthesia without pain. NAILS. Slender jjieces of metal, tapering to- ward and sometimes pointed at one end. and with fiattened or rounded heads. Nails are made of many different materials, as copper, zinc, brass, iron, or steel, but the bulk of the nails in ordinary use are made of steel wire. Iron nails, in turn, may be either wrought, cut, or cast, or nuule from wire. Until almost the close of the eighteenth century all nails were hand-made. In France for nearly a century light nails fcir carpenter work have been made of wire, but intil IS.iO they were made by hand with a hammer. The hand-nnide nail was pinched in a vise, with a portion projecting. A few blows of a hammer flattened one end into a head. The head was beaten into a counter sunk in the vise, thus regilating its size and shape. In Northern Europe. Britain, and America nails were made, at first, by forging on an anvil. The iron used for hand nail-mak- ing was first formed info nail-rods, which were sold in bundles. The nail-rods were prepared either by rolling the niallcal)le iron into small bars of the required thickness or by the nuich more common practice of cutting plate iron into strips by means of rolling-shears. In colonial days the making of nails from these rods was a household industry among the New England farmers. To America belongs the distinction of having first made cut nails by machinery, and with the advent of machine-cut nails the household in- dustry of nail-making rapidly declined. Of these early inventions, the only one that has survived is that patented in 1780 by E/.ekiel Reed, of Bridgewnter, Mass. At the close of the eighteenth century twenty-three patents for nail 7nachines, or improvements thereto, had been granted in the I'nitcil States, and their use bad been gen- erally introduced into England, where they were received with enthusiasm. In 1883 cut nails were first made of steel. The manufacture of tacks was also a house- hold industry in New England till well into the nineteenth century. The wire was [lointed on a small anvil; it was then placed in a vise, worked by the foot, which clutched it between jaws furnished with a gauge to regulate the length. A certain portion was left projecting, which was beaten by a bannner into a fiat head. New England, and particularly the city of Taun- ton, Mass., is now the centre of the tack-making industry in the United States. Wire nails were first made in the United States by William Hersel, of New York, in 18.t1 or IS52. In 1875 Father Goebel, a Catholic i)riest, came to Covington, Ky., from Germany, where the art of making wire nails was practiced. Goebel began the manufacture of wire nails at Covington, and in 1876 the American Wire and Screw Nail Company was established under his leadership. At first the nails were made by hand, hut soon a French machine was imported. In this machine the nails were held in dies to form the head. The blow of the hammer which produced the bead was caused by a board or single leaf spring suspended from a ceiling, against which the machine, in rotating, pushed a cam. The release of the latter produced the blow. For a time the wire nails were made with barbs, that they might hold more securely, and the new industry grew but slowly. In 1876, at the Centennial Exhibition, the company received a silver medal over French and German com- petitors. This called the attention of the trade to the article, and two other firms at once took up its manufacture. By 188.T there were twenty- six films in the business, and the wire nail had been adopted by many manufacturers. Since then their use has rapidly increased. Two types of wire-nail machines are described in Smith's Treatise on Wire. (See Bihliography at end of article.) In one type '•The wire ia automatically straightened from the coil and fed into the machine, where dies grip it, while a pair of nipjiers cuts the wire off in suitable lengths, when it is automatically pointed and headed. The latter operation is effected by means of the spring-bolt mechanism operated by a cam of the main shaft and remaining inoperative until a sulTicient length of wire has been fed to the machine for the next nail. The cutting and pointing are performed in one operation." In the second type, the heads are formed by steady pressure instead of intermittent striking. The older process of making cut nails is, in general, as follows: The ore, whether hematite or magnetic, is smelted in a blastfurnace, run into pigs, puddled, squeezed, and. if need be, hanunereil, rolh'd in the ]>uil(llinj,'-ball train, and cut to lengths. These are then faf;(iled — that is, l)iled so as to break joints — reheated to a white heat, drawn, passed through the nail-plate train, and the sheets, of the required width and thick- ness, allowed to cool. It is next cut across its length (the width of the sheet being usually about a foot) into strips which are a little wider than the length of the reipiircd nail. These plates, beateil by being set on ed;jre o! h'lt coals, are seized in a clamp and fed to the machine, end first. The pieces cut out are alternate, and. 1